


an open book with a torn out page

by elainebarrish



Category: Gone Girl (2014), Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Genre: F/F, I blame betsy + tori, but mostly betsy actually, this is just gay getting together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 17:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8111599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish
Summary: there's a lot of things you want - you want to buy amy out of the bar, you want to kill nick for taking her back, you want to know why detective rhonda boney has started frequenting your place of work. you don't find out any of these things, but you do find out what boney looks like in the morning, what she looks like smoking a cigarette, what it's like to kiss her. you learn that she giggles while drunk, but surprisingly quietly. you learn that the reason you keep looking at her actually has nothing to do with nick at all. you realise that you want to keep her around.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [helenecixous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/gifts).



> the summary actually has nothing to do with the fic I just ??? enjoy being gay ??? anyway this is just fluffy getting together cute shit shout out to betsy for not letting me liVE at any point and making me do this lmao I mostly hate it bye

Nick spends less time in the bar these days, even less than he had previously, even after he’d lost his job at the university after everything with Andie comes out, and when he does drop by to look over the accounts the two of you argue. Sometimes he still brings games with him, sometimes he tries to win you over by bringing you your favourite Starbucks order (this is more likely to work when pumpkin spice lattes are available, even though you pretend you don’t like them). These good moments are usually broken as soon as he accidentally mentions Amy, or mentions the kid, or reminds you that he’s stayed with her, the woman that tried to ruin his life, that tried to ruin your life. He gets frustrated with you, tells you that what happened happened to him, not you, and that you should forgive her as he has done, and you just remind him that he still sleeps in the spare room with the door locked sometimes, that he still struggles with leaving his kid alone with it’s mother on bad days.

One thing that you will never understand about him is his ability to forgive, and how rarely it comes into play; he’ll never forgive your father but he’ll forgive Amy, he still won’t forgive people the two of you had once known, but he will forgive her, the one person who is consistently worse than any of them, any of the people that had ever caused problems for him in the past. You wonder if it’s a self-flagellation thing, if he can forgive Amy because he sees himself as the only person involved, the only person that she tried to hurt. He doesn’t think about the effect on you, the effect of having the entire country scrutinise your face and your clothes and your relationship with your sibling all because of this one woman who had decided she’d had enough of Missouri. You suggest to him that maybe the two of you should save up and buy Amy out of the bar, and he looks at you like you’ve threatened to shoot him in the head, accuses you of trying to completely remove him from your life, and he doesn’t seem to understand that as much as you will always love him that is something you would consider doing to get rid of her. You hadn’t raised it again, after that, just hoped that he was thinking about it, but somehow that seemed to have been the thing that led to him wandering around looking like a kicked puppy for weeks, and you refusing to be in the kid’s life had just been making that expression worse and worse, so that now he didn’t ask and just looked sadly in your direction instead.

He’s been by and then disappeared again, back to playing happy families and pretending like you don’t almost hate him now, and you’re still seething as you serve several people, barely looking at them, not taking any notice of who hands you crumpled notes. You do notice her though, you always do, but she just nods at you as you pass over her drink, a vodka and coke which you hadn’t been expecting (sometimes she gets a shitty beer, and that aligns more with what you think you know about her). She sits in the corner, she always does, nurses her vodka for over an hour, and she doesn’t say anything, but you notice when she finishes it, brings her over another one like you’re some kind of shitty waitress, and she smiles, says thank you, and you roll your eyes at yourself. You hope she just thinks it’s because the two of you were both involved in something, because she agrees with you in that she can’t believe he went back to her, because it sometimes felt as though the two of you were the only sane ones involved in that whole mess, like you were the only ones that could see what kind of people Nick and Amy were. This is what you tell yourself as you curse Nick and try not to not look at her, what you tell yourself when you almost call her on the nights where you overindulge in your own stock of shit beer and worse whiskey (working in The Bar has just made you appreciate how expensive alcohol really is). She doesn’t ever give you a reason as to why she started to frequent The Bar, just turns up for a few hours where you would have to struggle not to look at her too much and would usually fail.

So you furiously wipe glasses and continue to blame Nick for everything in your life, the way that you always have done. If it wasn’t for him, you think, you wouldn’t even have met Rhonda Boney, wouldn’t even be thinking about her, wouldn’t even be working in this bar that the devil herself made possible. You decide that no one needs to hear and turn the music up higher than usual, so people have to lean over to hear each other, and you do not watch for Boney’s reaction to that (she just raises an eyebrow in your direction).

You’ve distracted yourself admirably by the time the fight breaks out, and it takes you a while to notice when usually you notice as soon as someone’s hackles are raised (you’re good at spotting tension, your dad made sure of that) and anyway, The Bar isn’t somewhere that gets to see all that many fights. By the time you turn the music all the way down and yell at them to get the fuck outside one of them’s already got a bloody nose and a chair’s been knocked over, the smack of wood against wood ringing in your ears. Before you can get out from behind the bar to stand between them, Boney’s already there, hands raised, and if anything that makes you rush even more, almost tripping down the step, because if Boney ends up with her nose broken you don’t know what you’ll do to the person responsible. One of them moves towards her and she just flicks her blazer to the side, showing him that she’s armed, and he backs away.

“The two of you can either go back to your beers quietly or take this somewhere I don’t have to witness it.” She says, and you think that she sounds tired.

“The two of you can fuck off,” you decide when it looks like they’re about to kiss and make up, and they look affronted. “I don’t want to see either of you here for at least a week, I don’t need this sort of shit.” They shuffle off and Boney smiles, a little, eyebrow still raised, watching as you pick up the chair, which now has a very pronounced wobble.

“Maybe I should get a gun for next time this happens,” you say drily, and she smiles a little.

“You looked like you were going to wade in there, weapon or not.”

“Most of the guys around here hesitate before swinging for a woman. Plus I could have taken both of those guys,” you boast, and immediately regret it when she gives you a look that makes it clear that she doesn’t believe you.

“I’m sure you could have done,” is all she says, but she follows you back to the bar anyway, and you walk around to face her where she leans against it.

“Another vodka and coke?” you offer, and she shakes her head.

“I’ll have a whiskey this time, even though I’m sure it’s awful.”

“You’re not wrong,” you say with a smile, setting a glass on the bar. “Hope you’re not driving back on this.”

“Worried I’ll have to arrest myself?” her tone is her usual slightly smug, but she accepts the whiskey and sits on one of the high stools.

“That would be awkward,” you allow, smiling, fiddling with the towel on your shoulder, tempted to go back to cleaning so you can look busy, so you don’t have to worry about looking at her too often. “Also putting handcuffs on yourself is surprisingly difficult.”

“I’m not even gonna ask how you know that,” and now her smirk is back and you busy yourself with putting glasses away so you don’t look for too long. She takes her jacket off, leaves the holster on, and you definitely don’t look at her then, not at the shirt that you’re sure she wore a year ago and you liked then too, and you tell yourself that being attracted to her is fine, that you’ve always liked to fuck with authority. You don’t think about cliché shit like the colour of her eyes and you really don’t remember the look of pride she gets whenever she talks about her daughter Mia.

“It was a sunny day when I’d just turned eighteen, and I was about to-” you start, grinning as she stops you.

“I was serious when I said that I didn’t want to know.” She sips her whiskey and you hold your hands up, still smiling. You look at the time and she notices, asks if you’re trying to get rid of her, and you don’t know how to explain that you’re actually disappointed that closing time is soon, that she’s going to disappear and you’ll go back to not talking once again, go back to pretending like you don’t know each other.

“Just wondering if you can nurse a whiskey for as long as you can nurse a vodka and coke.” You tease, and she rolls her eyes, then drinks what was left as though you’d issued it as a challenge.

“Does that answer your question?” She smiles as she pushes her glass forwards, and you refill it automatically.

“Careful, the last thing I want is a drunk detective on my hands.” 

“You’ve experienced much worse on a regular basis, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure you do, too. If cop shows have taught me anything it’s that the bullpen is full of drunks, and some of them are the cops themselves.”

“As a detective I tend to spend less time dealing with DUIs than most people expect,” she replies, and you think there might be some pride in the way she says “as a detective”. You absently wonder if her divorce had something to do with her working all of the time, and then conclude that all men are assholes.

“That doesn’t stop drunk cops,” you say, and she actually looks marginally offended. You think it’s cute that she actually believes in the Police force, and you have to fight a smile.

“I’ll have you know that none of our section of the force are drunks,” she says, a tiny bit stiffly.

“Oh I believe you, Officer.”

“That’s detective to you,” she reminds you, glass to her lips, covering what you’re pretty sure is a smile.

“And here I thought we were on a first name basis,” you tease, and she laughs, just a little bit, but you savour it.

“Hmm, maybe after I’ve had another one of these, if you’re lucky.”

She stays until closing, and you don’t tell her to go when you shoo everyone else out. She’s had a couple more glasses, but is only just a tiny bit wobbly, her gaze still mostly steady, and she hasn’t shown herself to be any particular sort of drunk so far, but maybe that comes later. She asks what she owes you and you wave her off, telling her that you don’t remember how many whiskeys she’d had, that you didn’t expect her to pay for those. She throws some notes on the bar with a mostly steady hand anyway and you roll your eyes as you put it in the till. She puts her coat on, and seems sober enough that you mostly offer just to be polite.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” Nick was not the only one who was dragged up right, who had been told from a young age to never let a lady walk home by herself.

“I’m pretty sure I’m big and mean enough to get myself home,” she replies, and you want to insist.

“Are you sure? Because I can just lock up and walk you.” You’re mostly ready to close up, and you itch to sling your hoodie on and make sure she gets home safe.

“I’m sure,” she says, sounding mostly exasperated but thankfully not too pissed off at you, and you’re prepared to let her go but she stumbles as she opens the door, just a little, and you curse your conscience as you start turning lights off and haphazardly pull on your hoodie, jacket following, patting your pockets to check you have everything with you as you hustle through the door, locking it quickly behind you, catching up to where Rhonda is achieving a mostly straight line down the path.

“I thought I told you I could get back by myself,” she sighs, and you smile, breath making a small white cloud in front of you.

“I believed you, but I have the kind of upbringing that means I can’t let a lady walk home by herself at midnight.”

“That works only while under the delusion that I’m a lady,” she responds, smirking, but you think it’s more of a smile than it usually is.

“If my patrons still occasionally call me “little lady” like I’m about seven, then you get it too.”

“Trust me I get enough people condescend to me as it is.” She didn’t stop walking as you caught up with her, and you continue next to her, glad of her pace that is more of a stroll than anything else, your hands jammed in your pockets. You pull out your pack of battered Lucky Strikes, ignoring that you’ve already had your self-prescribed one a day, needing something to fuss with, something to distract yourself with, discovering with dismay that your lighter is not cooperating.

“You don’t happen to have a lighter, do you?” You don’t have much hope (you’ve never seen her smoke) but she pulls one out of a coat pocket, smiling, her eyes glinting in the orange glare of the street lights.

“There’s one condition, which is that you have to let me steal one.” She smiles as she holds the lighter just out of reach, and you fish the pack back out of your pocket. “Lucky Strikes? Really?” She hands you both the lighter and your cigarettes back, digging through the inside pockets of her coat to pull out a pack of Marlboro’s.

“Man if I’d known you had something better than Lucky Strikes I would have attempted to steal one,” you say, inhaling smoke, breathing out and watching the cloud turn orange in the glow.

“Well it takes quite a while to walk back to mine so you might still have a chance.” She lights up, and you try not to concentrate on her hands, on the absolute clichéof the moment, watching as she exhales and you think about how you should have volunteered to light it for her.

“I didn’t know you smoked?” You say instead, and ignore that she isn’t walking in a particularly straight line now, the nicotine and her last whiskey combining to make her progress be somewhat hindered. You’re glad that you followed her, and she doesn’t even look all that annoyed by your quiet presence like you’d expected her to. You would offer her a shoulder to lean on to guide the way, but you don’t know where you’re going and she’d probably take it as an insult.

“I don’t at work as a rule, I don’t think flicking ash all over a crime scene or a crying relative is particularly professional.”

“Do I count as a crying relative?” You ask, not sure where you’re joking or not, trying to smirk at her as you raise your cigarette to your lips.

“You didn’t cry,” is all she says, smiling, and you’re frustrated by the non-answer.

You get to hers after half an hour of mostly quiet walking, and you’d thought she’d sober up but somehow she hasn’t, and you unlock the door for her because her motor skills are shot and she’d almost dropped her keys while giggling surprisingly quietly. She leads the way in, thankfully doesn’t almost fall down the stairs up to her apartment, then collapses on the sofa face down, and you make the decision to help her to bed, then you’ll go. You wonder when you became such a good samaritan, and don’t think about the forty-five minute walk home.

“Dude you’ve gotta drink some water and then get to bed,” you tell her, and she just half-heartedly waves her arm at you, so you grab it, trying to haul her off of the sofa, just getting a groan in return.

“Fuck off,” she mutters into the cushions, and you laugh.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that to get rid of me.”

When she sits up she’s practically pouting, the pattern of the cushion superimposed onto her face, and you try desperately hard not to think about how cute she is and fail immediately. You hand her the glass of water you retrieved while she was laying face down ignoring you, and she drinks it.

“You know I can look after myself,” she says between sips, and you smile.

“Yeah but I have motive, so if you died on the way home I would totally be blamed for it.” She laughs, and you wish she wasn’t drunk so you could kiss her. “Alright, time for bed.” She gets up without help, wobbles her way to her bedroom, and flops down onto the bed in the same way she had with the sofa. You pull her coat down her arms, laughing when she makes it unnecessarily difficult, and she giggles in return, and you want to bottle that sound so you can always remember it, even once you’ve both gone back to pretending that this never happened.

“I meant it when I said I could take care of myself,” she says, voice muffled by the pillow, and you smile and are glad she can’t see the sickeningly mushy look on your face.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to,” you reply, and your voice is softer than you meant it to be, so you consider adding a “fuckhead” onto the end to make it sound less genuine. You pull her boots off and she rolls over, smiling and squinting slightly up at you.

“Stay?” she asks, voice quiet, and you nod, sitting in the armchair next to the bed. You tell yourself that you’re just staying until she falls asleep, and then she does and you creep out of the room, turning the light off, listening to her surprisingly quiet drunk snoring, and you realise you can’t bear the idea that she might wake up expecting you to be there and you won’t be. You lay on the sofa, wonder how the fuck shit like this happens to you, ready for a sleepless night waiting for her to wake up, but the next thing you know light and the smell of coffee are assaulting your senses, and you’re wearing a blanket that you don’t remember pulling over yourself. You shift (your arm’s gone numb) and someone sets a mug down on the table in front of you. You wonder if she has one of those really fancy coffee machines because it smells like Starbucks and considering how much of it she drinks it would probably actually be worth it.

“Morning,” she says, sounding far too chipper considering last night, and you finally open your eyes to be confronted by her in a ratty oversized tshirt, one that’s so big it’s slipping off of one of her shoulders, and her hair is messy but in a cute way, and you think that she must have planned this whole thing because no one looks that cute in the morning.

“What time is it?” you manage, blinking owlishly as you grab your glasses off of the table, shoving them on as you sit up and yawn, pulling the blanket up with you. She sits at the end of the sofa that you’ve just vacated, and you make a valiant effort to concentrate on her face instead of the amount of leg that’s revealed by her choice of pyjamas.

“It’s quarter past eleven,” she replies, and you realise you should be at The Bar but you don’t want to leave, even though you’re sure the right side of your hair is sticking up. 

“I should be at The Bar,” you mutter, but you don’t move to get up, just grab your coffee and take a cautious sip, smiling. “I wondered if you had one of those posh ass coffee machines, but this answers my question.”

She laughs, sips her own cup. “My one vice. Well, that and the smoking and the drinking,” she looks at you. “And my ability to drag bar staff home with me.”

“Fuck off, I’m not bar staff, I’m a bar owner, thank you very much,” you retort, pulling your phone out of your pocket to discover that approximately zero people have attempted to contact you, as you’d expected, and that you don’t have all that much battery left, which you’d also expected. “And anyway, I couldn’t let you get home by yourself, not after that little stumble in the doorway,” you tease, and she rolls her eyes.

“You’re the one who kept refilling my glass.”

“It’s my job, you kept pushing it towards me.” You can feel the goofy smile on your face, and you can see the twitching at the corner of her mouth that means she’s fighting one too, and you’re thinking that this is maybe one of the better mornings you’ve had in the last few years.

“You could have cut me off.”

“But then I wouldn’t be sitting on your sofa smelling like beer and what a travesty that would be.” She smiles at you, laughing as you take another sip of your coffee and accidentally steam up your glasses, ignoring your muttered “piss off”.

“You know when I asked you to stay I didn’t mean on the sofa.” She says, quietly, and you shrug, trying hard to look nonchalant, looking down at your hands wrapped around your mug.

“I know, but you were drunk, so.”

“My knight in shining armour,” she says, failing to hide her smile now, and you roll your eyes. “Just shows that chivalry isn’t dead.”

“Secretly I just knew you’d have a really good coffee maker,” you reply, instantly cursing yourself and your ability to ruin any moment, because you definitely want to kiss her now and there’s nothing stopping you.

“I guess you did deserve a reward,” she smiles, and her voice is quieter, still teasing, but her gaze is serious, like she knows you’re about to do something, like she hopes you will. You take her cup from her, put them both on the table, shuffle forwards a little, so your crossed leg is pressing into hers, and she’s warm even through your jeans, then you slide a hand across her jaw, marvelling that it doesn’t cut you, that it can be that sharp but still soft to the touch, and she leans into you, eyes flicking down to look at your lips. You kiss her then, glad that you’d managed to mostly hide the trembling in your limbs, your eyes sliding closed and your hand cupping the nape of her neck.

“I almost feel adequately rewarded now,” you say nerdily when you break apart, and she rolls her eyes, kisses you again, softly and quickly, lingering just for a moment.

“Don’t you have a bar to run?” she asks, smiling, and you shrug.

“Yeah, but this is way more important.” She’s smiling still as you kiss her again, the curve of her lips soft under yours.


End file.
